iPod has sad face whenever I turn it on.

I recently changed the battery , headphone/hold button and back piece to my 5th gen iPod , and ive restored it a couple of times and now its giving me the sad faced iPod and tells me to go to www.apple.com/support/iPod . dont know what to do ?

i myself do not know i pods much but i do know that it indicates that an HDD error occurred.

you might want to try to listen to the HDD before you do anything

If it sounds very normal,

Try reseating the HDD

or as other people mentioned replace the cable

If it sounds abnormal

if it sounds like it is straining to free itself to spin

try holding the iPod upside down and see if it works if you power it on

if this fails ***do this at your own risk***hold it to your waist and drop it

i don't remember why but it solved the problem for somebody

if you hear humming

your spindle motor is probably stuck , there isn't really anything you can do about that (really painful thing to happen )

if it has been exposed to where it could have fell or it has been dropped

though very rare your read/write arms could have crashed into the platter. not much recovery from that

if your hear trashing/scraping noises

i really don't remember what this means but it is probably dead

if it is squealing/screaming/squeaking, clicking

HDD heads are failing and there isn't much to do

but to attempt data recovery

###############################################################################if it isn't showing any sings of death , then yes try a restore

it however may not bee the HDD it could be something faulty between the hdd and whatever reads from it (better be the CPU if i am not mistaken) if possible if you suspect a failure like this open it up and inspect closely for any signs of scorches,corrosion,cold solder joints

Hi, i just buy an ipod video G5 30gb 15 days ago, cheap, about 10$usd because the problem with this was the legend : battery very low, please wait.... so when i open, i saw i little issue in the battery cable connector, 2 pins united with a pellet (i don know the name in english, in spanish is "sarro", google translate said sarro=tartar....) so i buy a new battery but when i connected, my ipod 30gb wake up with a SAD FACE....

How is possible if was working, (interface) good, the only and principal problem was battery... i was trying everything, buton select+menu and right away select+play to put in disk mode the ipod, with this the ipod only get battery charging, and the PC or Mac not detect the ipod like external disk or something... so this isn´t a solution......

I read two things interesting, first theory to fix SAD FACE, is drop the ipod against the floor, from 2 meters or something high... to get the internal pieces from Hard disk unlock.... it sounds like it makes some sense but danger for our ipods....

Second theory, sometimes, when you open frist time an ipod, (first time for the ipod, not for u) some connections get losse in some points, and is a coincidense when you replace a display for example and get a sad face, or like my case, for replace a battery a get the SAD FACE in my ipod video, this sound with sense too...

So i decided to combine this two possible solutions, i open my ipod, disconnect battery, hard drive and the other flex cable to connect in middle of logic board, i wait 5 minutes, and hit a little the hard drive against my other hand, past this, i begin to assemble everything, first the hard drive, second the flex cable who contain the 3.5 jack, last the battery...... and guess what? this method WORKSSS¡¡¡ now this ipod video is working, i restore and i put music and videos to test, and yes, everything is working fine